Job Hunting Woes (a rant)

[deustroop]

First, on the academic side, a BA in anything is pretty well, by itself, an intellectual accomplishment only and seldom fits with a private sector career. Grad school will help to make your academic work useful but then you would need to limit your career to areas that value that type of knowledge. By itself, as you now know, a BA is a start only.

Your difficulty is one seen everywhere. Post secondary education wasted either because the courses are trivial and designed only to fill classes or the education attained will not support the career intended. That appears to be your challenge . The IT work does not fit with an English degree. Moreover, a BA cannot compete for entry level work with an immigrant who will work for next to nothing either here or India etc.

The market there has spoken. Which brings up the second challenge. Not wanting to move. Too bad but that suggests you lack motivation.

Is it still the case that you don't want to move outa homeland and don't want to touch up your friends/contacts ? All my employment involved one or the other of those.

 

[Ns1]

Sounds like you're not top tier college student which means you need to dig into your connections.

 

[Insomniator]

I don't understand all the people claiming IT support is being outsourced/eliminated and you have to get into development or you'll be homeless in a year. I get emails and recruiter calls for IT jobs from the basic help desk to advanced hardware/system support daily. Something like VMware skills aren't gonna be useless anytime soon. 290 results for Systems Administrator on career builder right now... guess being near NYC helps.

Anyway, as others have stated you might just have to accept that $13 an hour job and get your foot in the door. If you aren't a gremlin, you should be able to find something. I think half the battle with IT is surprising the managers you actually wore deodorant to the interview and can have a reasonably coherent conversation with a human being.

 

[Darwin333]

As others have said, definitely tap your friends and any other contacts you have. Half the population has gotten a job that way at some point in their lives and there is nothing wrong with it. No need for it to take a hit in pride either, it's just using your available resources as intelligently as you can in order to advance your career.

 

[Zorba]

If you have done 40 interviews, and not gotten a job, especially an entry level job, the problem is your interviewing ability.

Most companies will only interview 3-6 people for a job, so just on odds you should get an offer after a handful of interviews.

• One thing that really turns me off when interviewing people, is if during the interview I get the impression the resume was vastly embellished. I've seen this a lot with entry level people with an internship but they try to make it sound like they were the Chief Engineer.
  
• Make sure you dress nice, get a black suit and tie. I've interview with many places that tell you not to dress up, but I do anyways and I think it still makes an impact and it puts you into the professional mindset. You should also always be the best dressed person in an interview.
  
• Practice your interview answers, they should be concise, but complete. You want to convey the situation, what the problem was, what you did to address it, and what the result was. Replace "we" with "I" as much as possible, unless it is something that would obvious took a team and then try to make it clear how you a important part of the team. Don't say "I was part of a team that saved the world." Say "I was integral part of the team that saved the world, I was responsible for boxing package and determined that I could reduce packing time by 10% and tape usage by 5% if I prefolded the flaps..."
• If your answers take more than 2-3 minutes, they are probably too long. If they are less than 60 seconds, they are probably too short.
• Have the handful of experiences that show you in the best light and you like talking about the most, and work hard to apply them to as many different questions as possible, and remember to answer the question you wish they asked, not what they did ask (within reason).
  
• Always ask at least 2 or 3 questions at the end of an interview, even if they have already answered everything for you.
• Make direct eye contact. Try not looking to the sides a lot because some people think that means you are lying.